Is the Theta(+) a K pi N bound state?

Abstract

Following a recent suggestion that the Theta(+) could be a KpiN bound state we perform an investigation under the light of the meson-meson and meson-baryon dynamics provided by the chiral Lagrangians and using methods currently employed to dynamically generate meson and baryon resonances by means of unitary extensions of chiral perturbation theory. We consider two-body and three-body forces and examine the possibility of a bound state below the three-particle pion kaon-nucleon and above the kaon-nucleon thresholds. Although we find indeed an attractive interaction in the case of isospin I=0 and spin-parity 1/2(+), the interaction is too weak to bind the system. If we arbitrarily add to the physically motivated potential the needed strength to bind the system and with such strong attraction evaluate the decay width into KN, this turns out to be small. A discussion on further work in this direction is done.